Ajith (“AJ”) Kumar recently received his 362nd U.S. patent. He is Vice President Technology-Innovation for Wabtec, whose origins began in Western Pennsylvania with founder George Westinghouse Jr.’s invention of the automatic air brake in 1869. For surpassing Westinghouse’s patent record, 361, Kumar was honored during Wabtec’s Sept. 1 all-hands meeting.
Wabtec Corp. recently filed a 20,485,156 share offering of GE, and expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,048,515 shares. Wabtec said it will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares in the offering.
Ever since the first rail was laid in 1898 to lift Gold Rush Stampeders over the jagged mountains of the Alaska Panhandle to Canada’s Klondike, the tenuous but irrepressible White Pass & Yukon Route has been rescued from peril by a succession of improbable saviors, one of them the United States Army.
GE Transportation unveiled the first of 1,000 broad-gauge (1,676mm-gauge) Evolution Series locomotives for Indian Railways (IR) at the company’s plant in Erie, Pa., on June 1.
GE on Feb. 13 announced goals of having 20,000 women fill STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) roles by 2020 and obtaining 50:50 representation in all the company’s technical entry-level programs.
Canada’s export credit agency, Export Development Canada (EDC), has agreed to provide Angola with a $US 429.5 million loan to finance the purchase of 100 locomotives from General Electric (GE), according to an authorization granted by presidential order.
State-of-the-art locomotives stand ready to make their mark on what is ideally a power-hungry industry. Problem is, with traffic down, the railroads aren’t so hungry for new power.
A strategic business plan signed by General Electric and Russian locomotive and car builder Transmashholding for a diesel powerplant joint venture is an important component of a plan for GE to invest $1 billion in Russia’s oil and gas, power and transportation industries by 2020.
GE Measurement & Control on Nov. 17, 2015 introduced the Compact Hollow Axle Tester (CHAT), combining hollow-axle inspection mechanics and ultrasonic angle-beam probes with GE’s high-quality ultrasonic instrumentation. For organizations with hollow axle inspection requirements, CHAT significantly increases productivity and drives improvements in quality and traceability, the company said.
GE Transportation announced Nov. 9, 2015 that it received a Letter of Award from India’s Ministry of Railways for a locomotive supply and maintenance contract worth approximately $2.6 billion over 11 years to supply Indian Railways with 1,000 diesel-electric locomotives. “The deal advances the ‘Make in India’ initiative and reinforces India’s position as a global manufacturing destination,” GE said.
